Communication

There are several ways to communicate with other players, be it to ask for help or just say hello. If you have played a mud before, you will be familiar with most of them - but there are some notable differences.

Chat is the main global communication channel and can be heard by anybody in the game, unless they have turned the channel off. To send a message, simply type 'chat <message>'. As you may notice in the following example, the first letter of your message will be automatically capitalised, and punctuation will be added.

chat hello, everybody

You chat, 'Hello, everybody.'

Typing 'chat' on its own will display a log of the last 20 messages broadcasted over the channel. If you wish to turn the chat channel off (or back on), type 'config chat'. The announcement channels - info, battle and victory - can be toggled in a similar manner.

The chat channel is intended for civil conversation. If you have anything less than civil that you absolutely need to share with everybody, use the gossip channel, which is off by default. To turn it on, use 'config gossip' as with the other channels.

Tell will send a message to a single user over any distance. If somebody sends you a tell (or replies to your tell), you can use the 'reply' command to continue talking to them. Typing 'replylock' will make sure all your replies will go to that person, even if somebody else sends you a tell meanwhile. If you wish to block others from sending you tells, use the 'config tell' setting.

tell alayla are you there?

You tell Alayla, 'Are you there?

Alayla replies, 'Yes, what's the matter?'

replylock

Reply Lock has been switched on for Alayla (who is currently online).

reply can you help me?

You reply to Alayla, 'Can you help me?'

Note:

If you find another player obnoxious, you can 'ignore' them, which will prevent you from seeing their chats and tells. Note that you won't be able to send tells to an ignored player either. You may ignore up to ten people at a time, and the list does not save when you quit.

Say can be used to talk to people within 500 feet. If you want to direct your speech to somebody, you can 'say to <person> <message>' (or 'say @<person> <message>') - your message will still be heard by everybody within the range, but it will be clear you are talking to that person.

By default some emoticons added at the end of your says will be stripped and replaced by the appropriate feeling, which is added before your message. If you want your emoticons to show, there is a 'config say emoticon' option that you can toggle. Similarly, you can put special characters at the beginning of your message, and they will be added to your expression. For a list of emoticons and characters supported by this system, read 'help say'.

say I finally killed the black sash! :D

You laugh and exclaim, 'I finally killed the black sash!'

Sixty-six feet west of you, Alayla grins and asks, 'Good job, first time?'

say to alayla +revenge at last

You nod your head at Alayla and say to her, 'Revenge at last.'

If you 'whisper' a message, it will be heard by everybody within 5 feet, and if you 'shout' something, by anybody within 10,000 feet. The emoticon enhancements do not work with either of these two commands.

You can also express emotions using the 'emote' command or the predefined socials. For a list of available socials, type 'socials' on its own, to view a list of adverbs that go with each social, type its name followed by 'types' (e.g. 'smile types'). You can direct both socials and emotes at a certain person, using 'to' or '@' in a similar way you would with says. For emotes, any 'you' pronoun or forms thereof that you use in the emote text will be considered as referring to the person you are emoting to.

emote to alayla taps you on your shoulder to get your attention

Your character taps Alayla on her shoulder to get her attention.

Due to popular request, shortcut characters have been added as an alias for some channels - namely . (fullstop) for chat and ' (apostrophe) for say.